Lawful Escort (3 page)

Sabrina sent her a questioning look, but Holly just scowled and shrugged.

“All the other girls are booked, so there’s nobody to take your place. You’ll work tonight, no matter how
sick
you are, or you won’t work for me anymore. Do you hear me? And I’ll make sure nobody else in town will hire you either. I hope we understand each other. I want you at the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental, Room 2307 tonight at 7pm, or you’re fired.”

The machine stopped.

“Old hag!” Holly croaked, her voice hoarse from throwing up.

“What was that with the Japanese client?” Sabrina looked at her friend, who made a telling hand movement.

“Pervert.” At first it looked like Holly didn’t want to give any more information, but Sabrina knew her friend well and knew that eventually she’d tell her what she wanted to know. Holly wasn’t one to keep secrets.

“So, we’re in his hotel room, and I think he just wants what most of these guys want. But no, that man had to go all kinky on me. He brought with him these little steel balls on a chain, and you really don’t want to know what he wanted me to do with them …”

Sabrina gave her a look, confirming that no details were necessary. She’d already received more information than she cared for.

“So, anyway, I bolted, and when Misty found out, she basically put me on probation. Said if I walked out on a client again, she’d fry my ass. Pardon my French.”

Holly’s French was never the problem. In fact, most of her clients liked her French and anything else she could do with her tongue. Sabrina shook her head and laughed.

“Let me make you some chamomile tea.”

While she busied herself in the large eat-in kitchen and tried to find some dry crackers to go with the tea, Sabrina wondered whether any of her colleagues would find it strange that she shared a flat with a professional escort.

She and Holly had grown up together in a small town on the East Bay. They’d been best friends back then and had reconnected after college when they’d found out that they both had decided to move to San Francisco. Nothing had been more natural than sharing a flat.

While Sabrina went on to go to law school, Holly had bounced from one job to the next until she’d realized that there was an easier way to make money.

Blonde and blue-eyed, she was quite a beauty. In the right clothes, she was a stunner. So why go out on dates with guys, who’d just buy her dinner and then expected her to sleep with them, when she could actually get paid for what she was going to do anyway?

Of course, there were always clients like the Japanese businessman from the previous week, but according to Holly most of the guys were normal men, mostly businessmen from out of town feeling lonely.

At first, Sabrina had been shocked at Holly’s choice to become an escort, but when she saw that Holly enjoyed her job, at least most of the time, and had remained the same kind of person, who she was before her odd career choice, she’d stopped trying to change her friend.

In any case, Holly’s large income had come in handy when Sabrina hadn’t been able to maintain her part-time waitress job during the last year of law school due to the demands of her studies. Holly had taken over paying the entire rent for the flat and always made sure the fridge was stocked.

Her friend had never let her pay anything back, not even now when Sabrina had gotten a job that paid her well enough to put a few hundred dollars aside every month. What were friends for, Holly had insisted. She was more a sister to her than a friend, and she knew Holly felt the same about her.

Holly was still as pale as Snow White when Sabrina brought her the tea and made her sip some of it. She was propped up on a couple of cushions.

“You can’t possibly work tonight. She’ll have to understand that.”

Holly frowned. “That’s what I told her, but you heard what she said. If I don’t get my ass over there, I’m fired. And this time she means it.”

Holly tried to sit up, but instantly dropped back into the cushions. “Oh, damn. So dizzy.”

“You can’t go. I’ll call her and explain it.” Sabrina got up but felt herself be pulled back by Holly’s hand.

“You’re not my mother, so don’t. There’s no use. She’s about as understanding as Scrooge.”

“Can’t you find anybody to sub for you?” Surely there were other girls, who could take this call for her? There wasn’t any convention in town at the moment, so business should be slow.

“I’m not a teacher, Sabrina, I’m an escort. We don’t have a central system that we call when we need a substitute.”

“There must be some
independents
out there. Don’t you know anybody?” There was no way she’d let Holly work tonight. She needed her rest to recover from whatever bug she’d picked up. What if she had salmonella poisoning? No, she wouldn’t let Holly exhaust herself today.

“What? You wanna do it?” Holly laughed and then stared at Sabrina’s shocked face.

“Oh, come on, I wouldn’t know what to do,” Sabrina waved her off instantly. She and sex weren’t exactly on speaking terms right now. She’d barely dated in years, and hadn’t … Well, never mind. It wasn’t an option. The closest she’d gotten to sex in the last three years was listening to Holly’s stories about her clients.

“It would be perfect. Just look at it like a date.”

“Out of the question.” Was Holly completely out of her mind? She probably had a fever. Maybe Sabrina should get the thermometer and check. Or better yet, drive her to the hospital to make sure she wasn’t delirious. She put a hand on Holly’s forehead to feel if she was hot.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking if you’re feverish.”

“I’m not. Listen, you might not even have to sleep with him. Some of the guys just want company.”

“Like they pay that kind of money just to talk to somebody, puh-lease!” Sabrina huffed indignantly. Not even
she
was that naïve. She knew exactly what an escort was expected to do, at least she knew enough from the stories Holly had told her. There was no need to find out first hand.

“And besides, I have enough trouble just fending off Hannigan every day.”

“Well, that guy’s a jerk,” Holly commented. “I don’t know why you haven’t kicked him in the balls yet. I’ll do it for you, if you let me.” Holly’s grin turned truly wicked. Sabrina knew her friend would thoroughly enjoy kicking the crap out of Hannigan. She knew all places where guys hurt the most—intimately. And she’d make full use of her knowledge.

“Maybe I’ll let you do that one day. In the meantime, I still need my job.” Sabrina tried not to think of the predicament she was in. She wanted her career to flourish, but she didn’t want to do it at the expense of her integrity. Giving in to Hannigan would mean plum assignments to interesting cases, but nothing disgusted her more than the thought of Hannigan touching her. She’d rather have leeches put on her skin.

“And I need mine. We’re in the same boat.” Holly’s voice sounded resigned.

Sabrina gave her a long look. What her friend was suggesting was too much of a stretch for her. “I can’t. I can’t just sleep with some guy I don’t know.”

Holly took her hand. “When did you last have sex?”

“You mean sex other than with a battery operated device made in China?”

“Yes, sex with a man.”

“You know that as well as I do, so what’s that got to do with anything?”

“When?” Even though Holly’s voice was still weak, she wouldn’t give up.

“First year of law school. As if you didn’t know the story—hell, everybody watching YouTube sure had a good look at my ass.” Sabrina shuddered at the memory of it. Without her knowledge, Brian had videotaped them having sex and then posted it on YouTube for everybody to see.

“That was quite unfortunate, I admit. However, you shouldn’t let one bad experience like that hold you back. You need to let loose, pretend to be somebody else and just let yourself go. You can’t wallow in those bad memories and be afraid of what the next guy is going to do. You’ve got to take charge of your life. If you assert yourself in your sex life, you’ll get what you want. So, don’t sit around like a wallflower. You’re pretty, you’re charming, you’re smart. You could be anything. And you could get any guy you wanted.”

Sabrina looked at her friend as if she’d lost her mind. She couldn’t do what Holly suggested. “I could never pull it off.” She could come up with a hundred reasons why she couldn’t do it. “I’m not like you, Holly. I don’t jump into bed with guys on the first date. Hell, I barely kiss on the first date. I’m
so
not a candidate for this.”

“Bull! You took drama in college. Don’t tell me you can’t playact a little. Just pretend you’re me. In fact, that’s what you’ll have to do anyway, so the whole thing doesn’t blow up in your face, or in mine. You just go there and tell him you’re Holly Foster, and then you’ll behave like Holly Foster. Just pretend you’re going on a blind date.”

Strangely, the more Holly marketed the idea, the less unreasonable it sounded.

“A blind date? He’ll buy me dinner, and then he’ll expect to have sex with me. Like that?” Sabrina tried it on for size. It sounded strange in her ears. “Ridiculous. I’m not the type for this. You’ve known me all my life. What in my history makes you think I could even pull this off? The guy will see straight through me.”

“Don’t be so paranoid. All he’ll see is your pretty face, and nothing else will matter. It’ll be like a date, only that he paid for it in advance. And you know exactly what’s coming. In fact, you’ll be in charge. Most guys let me take the lead. They want to be seduced. It’ll give you some practice. I tell you, you sure need it.”

That jab hurt. She’d put herself on the shelf after the disaster with her fellow student Brian, who’d obviously just wanted to see if he could get her into bed so he could post a sex video on the internet. The humiliation was something she never wanted to feel again.

She’d buried herself in her studies after that and rarely taken part in the school’s social activities to avoid seeing him more than she had to.

“You need to get over it. What better way to do it, knowing exactly what you’re up against? It’s a one-night thing. He’s from out of town. You’ll never see him again. This is your chance to do something crazy, have fun, have fabulous sex, enjoy yourself, let loose.”

Holly gingerly bit into a cracker as she glanced at Sabrina.

Sabrina was torn. She wanted to help her best friend out of a jam. Holly had helped her out so many times over the last few years, and she really owed her. But this? How could she agree to pretend to be an escort and go to a strange man’s hotel room to have sex with him?

If her parents ever found out, they’d be appalled and sink into the ground out of shame for their daughter. Yet, one thing Holly had said, stuck. She
had
wallowed in her bad memories and hadn’t let anybody close because of it. She was afraid of getting hurt again and had passed up sex because of it.

Perhaps it wasn’t any worse than a blind date. Two strangers, a dinner, some sex. Wasn’t that what most men expected anyway from the women they dated? Only they got away cheaper, with just a lousy dinner. Why not sell herself for something more, something closer to what she was actually worth?

And besides, she’d started missing sex and the touch of a man. You couldn’t cuddle with a vibrator. But her fear of being hurt again had held her back from dating. She’d figured that once she met the right guy, things would fall into place. But they hadn’t. She hadn’t met anybody, and she was just as lonely now as she was after the debacle in law school.

Maybe Holly was right, and it was time to let loose and have one wild night with a stranger. Just one night. Without regret, without ever having to see the guy again, so there could be no embarrassment and no hurt. He wouldn’t even know who she was. Anonymity was a great protector.

“Will I have to ask him for the money upfront?”

Holly smiled. “No. Everything’s already paid for through the office. No messy dealings with cash. It’ll be like a date.”

Sabrina nodded slowly. There was no going back now. She had to be brave to help her friend—and herself in the process.

“Ok. I’ll do it. I’ll be Holly Foster for tonight.”

3

The minute Daniel opened the door to his hotel room, he realized why the escort agency had charged him an exorbitant amount of money for the pleasure of having the dark haired woman accompany him for the evening. She looked as if she’d stepped out of a fairy tale.

Her stunning green eyes looked at him. There was surprise in them as well as a silent question. Had she knocked on the wrong door? He hoped not.

If this was truly the escort they’d sent him, then he cursed himself already for not having asked more details about what he’d actually paid for. Was this strictly just a companion for the reception, or would she provide him with other, more personal services later?

Unable to speak, his eyes did all the talking for him, sweeping over the soft features of her face, her graceful neck and the slender curves accentuated by her light summer dress, short enough to show off her shapely legs all the way down to her elegant ankles. He noticed her chest rise with every breath she took.

Her breasts were a perfect size for his hands and firm without the aid of a bra. The slinky summer dress with spaghetti straps didn’t allow for one.

How long he’d stared at her, Daniel truly couldn’t tell. Maybe a second, or maybe as much as five minutes. But he knew why he was suddenly tongue-tied. It was a clear case of lust. Severe lust. Uncontrollable lust. Afraid he’d blurt out what was on his mind, something along the lines of
I want to fuck you now
, he clenched his jaw together and kept gazing at her lips. They were red and full and parting slightly as if waiting for his touch. He wished.

His imagination took him on a wild ride. He could see himself ripping the clothes off her body and ravishing her like a predator. Her soft body underneath his, he would ride her hard until she’d scream his name.

God, what he wanted her lips to do to him. Now. Instantly. He’d dated his fair share of pretty women and had bedded plenty of them, but the woman who stood before him was more than pretty. She looked like she was made for love.